Durham daily recorder., 1887-05-14


morbid
seeker after sensation. It is simply
a tug, as we call our strong and
noisy little towing propellers. Il bears
no such sign as "the dead boat" 1t is
not called "the Charon" or "the Styx."
Its sign announces the familiar word
Fidelity" Thousands see it every day,
and seeing it observe no difference be-
tween it and the hundreds of tugs that
puff up and whistle busily along our
waterways. Its destination, when IL
leaves the funeral wharf at Twenty-sixth
street Is Harris island, up where the East
river p0urs into the sound. This is one
of a chain of islands made use of by the
city for the maintenance of its penal and
charitable institutions in needed separa-
ton from the people and the homes of
the metropolis. Harris island has upon
it the infant OF founding asylum, a hos
pital and the Potter's field.
This Potter's field Is simply tract of
bare ground unmarked by monuments or
slabs, or even boards, but rapidly be-
coming usurped by the trenches that
necessarily follow one another side by
side in quick succession. Into these
trenches the city's collins are lowered
seven on top of one another and nine
lengthwise, end to end. Each coffin, in
place of the little plate of metal that
loving regard urges US TO attach TO the
headboard, is marked with q number
grooved out of the rough pine with q
round chisel. A record Is kept of this
number, including all that is known OF
the body that IL is meant TO help to iden.
tify. OF the thousands of human re-
mains that lie inferred here few will ever
be disturbed. The moaning wife, in the
bare and cherries tenement, who sees
the city's agent carry away the mortal
remains of her husband, vows In heart
breaking earnestness that she will work
and toll and save TO have that loved dust
returned to her and reinterred among lis
kin, but the years pass and time brings
no betterment OF circumstances. IL Is so
with poor mothers, with INDECENT fathers
and sons, whose kindred dying, are
wrested from them by the law and by the
logic of necessity. They assure them
selves that they will reclaim their own /;
but alasl seldom, very seldom, docs the
wheel Of fortune turn so that they have
the means TO crafty this natural, earn
est wish born of instinct and of duty.
Let IL be said TO the credit of one class
Of our fellow-men that they seldom
allow so dread q fate as burial In the
Potter's field TO overtake their kind.
These are the Hebrews. Nothing Is more
often encountered by visitors TO the yard
Of Bellevue Hospital than the ever
curious ceremonies of q Jewish burial
service over o coffin resting on the flag
ging of the court behind the morgue.
The robed, bearded rabbi, with his book
In hand, recites the written words of the
service, while men of his religion, few or
many as the case may be, stand about
with moistened eyes and uncovered
heads. Often not even the name of the
dead is known; sometimes Il Is only a
matter of conjecture that in life the soul
Of Hebrew Inhabited that flesh. In all
cases where the name and religion are
positively known but there Is no relative
able to do his duty by the dead, the He
brew Free Burial Society undertakes the
humane task and inters the remains in n
Jewish cemetery with ceremonies such as
all the dead deserve and with neat grave
and headstone TO testify to the humanity